Public access recreation and the expanded marina suggested in the Horizons Waterfront Plan are among the possibilities for public use that an ad hoc committee will offer Thursday for 53 acres of county-owned waterfront at Sturgeon Point.
Environmental developer Frank Parlato Jr., a member of the ad hoc group that campaigned against auctioning the property, will outline one possible approach, involving expansion of the marina owned by the Town of Evans and nature trails to observe wildlife in the remaining acreage extending east of Sturgeon Point Road. Residents say the acreage is home to a herd of white-tailed deer.
The environmentalists who want to keep the land for future generations of county residents will conduct a tour of the area, including several hundred feet of lake bluff north of the Sturgeon Point Road, starting at 7 p.m. Thursday.
"There is no hurry to develop this land," said County Legislator Joan Bozer, D-Buffalo, who will join the tour. "The whole thing about Horizons was public access to the waterfront."
She and Legislator Bert Villarini, D-Hamburg, sponsored a resolution, approved 17 to 0 by the Legislature last week, rejecting a $ 26,000 bid for the parcel, a price $ 640,000 less than the minimum than county had suggested the auction might bring.
The town marina has 209 slips, costing from $ 520 to $ 870 a year. All are rented, and the town Recreation Department is suggesting to persons who are not already tenants that the chances of renting larger slips are almost non-existent.
Maureen Andrews, senior clerk, said Tuesday that present tenants of smaller slips are offered the larger slips as they open up.
It is unlikely that larger slips will open for non-tenants at any time in the foreseeable future, she said.